Hugh Bailey: Nothing simple about questions or answers

Published 5:26 pm, Friday, December 28, 2012

We don't want a solution in 20 years. We don't want to make it right for future generations. We need to make a change now.

An engaged president and an outraged populace means there may be a real chance to change our gun laws. But that doesn't mean it will come easily. In most cases, the answers aren't simple because the questions aren't simple.

Some things, though, are obvious. A man attending a forum led by U.S. Rep. John Larson a week ago said the Newtown incident was not about the guns at all. "He would've found another way," this person said. If that's your argument, you need to answer: What way? What would he have done? What could have caused comparable harm? If there's no good answer, then it comes back to the weapons he used.

As to the more difficult questions, the problem is not just about mass shootings. We have a gun crisis in this country that manifests itself on the streets of our cities, including Bridgeport, every day. These problems are not independent of one another. An initial focus on guns that are only useful for killing many people in a short time span is a starting point, not an end.

And along those lines, the issue of regional gun laws is almost meaningless. Most big cities, which have the most violence, have the most stringent gun laws, leading some people to conclude they don't work. But tough gun laws don't include guards at the city line -- it can be as simple as driving to the next town to get around those laws.

One less-than-good-faith argument says that since car crashes kill thousands of people a year, and planes were used as weapons on 9/11, maybe we ought to ban those, just like some people want to ban guns. But cars and planes serve legitimate purposes in society, even if they can be misused by people bent on harming others. The social utility of assault rifles is yet to be defined.

Another line of thinking pins the blame on cultural decline. Maybe there's some truth there, but it can't stop with that. Ending the glorification of gun violence in movies and video games, reintroducing respect for the family, bringing common decency back to society -- those are worthy goals. They would also take decades to bring to fruition, if they were possible at all. And how many more tragedies would there be in the meantime?

If the problem is cultural, then the problem is America itself. To say that people shouldn't be allowed to spend their money where they choose if those choices include violent movies and video games is to take on an issue bigger than guns. The people making cultural arguments should consider carefully where that line of thinking will lead.

Finally, there's the issue of the millions of gun owners in this country who have never shot anyone, never broken any laws and are not likely to do so in the future. Why, they ask, should they lose their rights because of the actions of the few who don't follow the rules?

There may be no good answer for that. But we do recognize that in any society there are trade-offs. The laws as they currently stand allow for millions of people to own weapons that are exploited and misused by a small percentage of the population. The result is carnage on a scale unthinkable elsewhere. No other wealthy country has gun violence like America has it.

We can have our gun laws as they currently exist, but we have to accept what comes with it. And that includes what happened on Dec. 14.